We've discussed this in other threads but its probably worth recording here. I've just upgraded to a new 4GHZ iMac, with 512GB flash memory and 24 GB of memory - a fast machine by any standard, but it makes no difference to SP4 - printing is so slow as to be unusable really - every command gets a spinning ball (!) - print, select printer, select options, print - what takes me 3 seconds in SP2 is a 30 second or more job in SP4 - when I've got a dozen different pages to print it's a nightmare. Of course when it does print, output still has the rasterisation issues previously reported.

Is it just me? Doesn't anyone else get these problems? I'm seriously considering abandoning SP unless we see some commitment to fixing these and many other long standing issues and bugs.

I'm away from base at the moment so don't have access to the files - I'll send them on in due course. I'm using latest El Capitan and latest SP4. None of this is new - it goes back to SP3 - and I've logged it here before - been promised fixes but they've never happened.

Hi axys,I made some very simple tries with a factory template : "photos expo, a two pages brochures" then from SP4.0.4 use, from the print dialog, select "Open the pdf document in preview".from then, it takes only a few seconds toSP to begin to send the first pages to preview.As this template has only two pages I "printed" it 10 times and get a pdf document of 20 pages.MBP unibody 17" 3.06ghz with 8GB running 10.11.5 ( modest computer regarding you own one).Helpt his helps ( not sure of yet).

Last edited by Jean-Jacques Boutaud on July 25th, 2016, 12:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason:correct some typos

Thanks JJ. I have 3 printers, all networked through an Apple Extreme router. They are all affected, but only when using SP4. I am still away from base, but can repeat your print to pdf experiment without issue on my MacBook Air (albeit running 10.8.5). I can only print 1 pdf though - how do you print 20? Selecting 20 in the copies box is ignored.

Is this ever going to be fixed? I've got to the point with SP4 now where it simply doesn't want to print A3 anymore - if I drop a 300k A3 pdf onto an SP4 page, it becomes 8.5MB and after at least 5 minutes of spinning ball, this is what I get (and it prints like that).

If I export to pdf, the file size jumps to 10MB, and the page is completely blank!

If I change the pdf to a png, same result.

Really completely unusable now for me.

What is so frustrating is that this was never an issue in SP2 - it started in SP3 and has never been addressed, like so many other issues.

I've tested the program on two computers:- OS X 10.11.6 with Retina screen: same problem that you have. A PNG image at 300dpi had an artifact as in you screenshot of the print dialog.- OS X 10.10.5 with regular screen: no problem. Exported PDF (original and 600 dpi), PNG (300 dpi).

On machine with 10.11.6+Retina, I decreased the resolution when exported to PNG and found that the area taken by the artifact decreases. At about 154 dpi and below, there is no defect in the exported image. You can try this as a quick workaround.

A better way is to crop the image before adding to the document. Only about 1/4 of it appears on the page, the rest is outside and is not printed. I cropped this image leaving only the part that is visible in your document and added the result to a new document. The latter was exported to PDF (original and 600 dpi) and PNG (300 dpi) with no defects.

Thanks -I had tried cropping the image before posting but it made no difference for me (in fact the screenshot is the cropped image). The workaround is ok for internal work, but the reduction in quality rules it out for anything more than that.

You've avoided responding to my question - will it ever be fixed, along with the other many issues I have reported in the last 12 months?

Luckily I have found that SP2 still works well except for printing, but, if I export to a pdf, it's fine - it does all of this with no fuss and in a few seconds, yet SP4 seemingly can't do any of it.

I'm grateful as ever for your help Nick, but so disappointed that this program doesn't seem to get much attention any more.

I cannot say when we start working on this problem. I've raised the priority of the issue and reminded the product manager about it.

I've measured the time that the Print dialog takes to open. A computer with the regular screen did this in 11 seconds. A newer one with Retina took about 40 seconds. It looks like some optimization is needed to work on computers with high resolution screen.

For me, myiMac with 5k screeen hasn't made things better or worse - printing dialogue is equally slow on my iMac or my Mac Mini with LED display - as I've said, this problem goes right back to SP3. I had thought it was a processing power issue, but with the maxxed out iMac having the same problem, this can't be the case. It doesn't always happen, and inserting pdf's seem to be the main issue. They of course have their own rasterisation issues, previously logged.